A young woman hiking alone in the mountains sounds dangerous. In the pre-cell phone era maybe it was, but I'll stop short of calling it foolish.

A lot of people have trouble with their second novel - the dreaded sophomore jinx. I wrote three books in between the two novels, and they just weren't very good.

I was hiking a five-day loop - alone - in the Rocky Mountains when I rounded the switchback and saw a large body on the trail ahead. It had brown fur with a cinnamon tinge that was draped across dense, humped back muscle. A broad head lifted and I could see the dish-shaped muzzle was catching my scent. I knew bears. This was a grizzly.

I'm very rigid about my schedule. I sit down at 8 A.M., and the Internet blocker goes on. My standard time is 120 minutes. I'm a compulsive writer, so it reminds me to stop writing... If I write more than that, I turn into an ogre for my kids.

I was in high school when Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about his relationship with Lewinsky. We didn't have social media back then - hell, we didn't have a computer with the Internet in our home - so the details of it all escaped me.

Spin Me Round was number one all over the world, everywhere. It changed the face of pop music, no question. We took technology further than Trevor Horn.

For the future, primarily, we must educate people in science, engineering, technology and math.

You can go to the Internet and know more than your mom in two seconds. It's crazy how fast teenagers have knowledge and information these days. So, I think it's harder to say, 'Your father and I know more than you.'